


First names

by Its_Raineing_Words



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, First Kiss, Fluff and Crack, Getting Together, M/M, This Is STUPID, gosh this isn't my best work, those two are idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 00:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6448192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_Raineing_Words/pseuds/Its_Raineing_Words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arnold never called Lister by his first name, that would be just too weird. So when he does Lister acts exactly how you'd expect him to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First names

**Author's Note:**

> So this is not really my best work ever since I started writing this about a year ago and I literally found it today and just put it up with only some cursory editing. This wasn't meant to be crack but it turned into such a crack fic and I regret none of it.

"Could you stop being such a smeghead for once in your miserable life, David!" Rimmer had shouted when Lister started tapping out the tune of one of his rasta billy skank songs with his fingers. Again.  
"Wait, what? When did you start calling me David?" He said eyebrows raised as he looked up from his tapping.  
"Stop changing the subject, miladdo. You know very well what I said." Rimmer retorted angrily, pushing down a wave of hot embarrassment.   
"Heh, alrigh' then, since you asked so nicely...Arnold." Said hologram fumed as Lister grinned at him. 

It had only progressed from there, Lister wouldn't let Rimmer live down his slip up constantly calling him Arnold or Arnie and if he really want to get Rimmer's goat, love.   
"Shift's over, love. Time to swap places." He said as he plopped down onto his chair.   
"Lister, would you STOP PATRONISING ME?! THIS HAS GONE BEYOND A JOKE NOW!" Rimmer screamed, going redder than a hologram really should be able to go.   
"Jesus, Arn, what did I do this time?"   
"What did you do, Dave? What did you-?" He cut himself off suddenly by making an inhuman sound of irritation, "When you walked in here you addressed me as 'love' and just then you called me 'Arn'." Rimmer then glared at Lister and stomped out  
"YOU CALLED ME DAVE JUST THEN!" And then a few moments later, "HYPOCRITE!"

It only got worse from there because soon enough Lister stopped calling Rimmer by his first name to annoy him and just because it was habit much to Rimmer's annoyance.   
"Hiya, Arnie, love. Pass us the sugar would ya?" Upon hearing this Rimmer grabbed the artificial sugar and tipped it over Lister's head "Oi! What the hell, Arn?!"   
"Stop calling me that you goit!"   
"Why are you so angry? I don't get angry when you use my name."  
"SMEG! OFF! LISTER!" His face was bright red and a vein was throbbing in his forehead   
Of course, the Red Dwarf wasn't a stranger to Rimmer's fits of rage and theatrics but this one seemed worse, they were tears shining in his eyes as he stormed past Lister. He looked back to Kryten who just looked amused as did Cat but Lister was starting to feel guilty and took off after Rimmer. He found Rimmer in the corridor sobbing into his hands, he quickly rubbed his eyes as he looked up at Lister and glared.   
"Come to gloat, have you? Well, get it over with."  
"Arn-I...Rimmer..." But he ignored him and carried on talking  
"'Oh, look at poor Rimmer, crying over his roommate.' I know you don't like me back but I would appreciate it if you didn't joke about it." Rimmer was practically snarling but his teary eyes ruined the effect somewhat.   
"Wait, what?" Lister gaped  
"You know what I mean, why else would be using all those pet names?"   
"Rimmer, Arn I didn't know and I wasn't doing it to upset you. Annoy you but not upset you. I didn't know you liked me, I really didn't." Lister hesitantly sat down next to him   
"So now I just royally cocked up, didn't I?" Rimmer groaned.   
"No!" He yelled before realising how loud he had been "I mean, of course not. You're my mate, I know I don't show it but I care about ya, man. And it's just us in space, probably forever. So if you like me that’s fine, Arn."  
"But it isn't! Because you don't like me back!"   
"Who says? Because I'm willing to give it a try, and if it doesn't work then we go back to how it was."  
"But I thought I was a smeghead."  
"You are, but you're my smeghead and you're also a pretty good bloke and honestly, I wouldn't mind kissing ya." Rimmer blushed at his words but still looked skeptical  
"I thought you were as straight as a Roman road."  
"Maybe but I can go off-road sometimes, I did go to Art College, you know."  
And with that David decided to make good on his talk and kiss Arnold, in truth he had wanted to kiss him since he’d first met him but what with the whole ‘end of humanity’ thing and the fact that he was an utter smeghead kind of made it difficult. The hologram made a sort of surprised sound and twitched but didn’t make any move to stop him, just let Lister kiss him which was what he’d dreamt about for years. It didn’t take long for Arnold to kiss him back however and they sunk to the floor, not caring at all that Kryten or Cat could see them if they decided to follow Lister. 

After they broke apart Rimmer grinned at him, actually grinned at him and Lister found himself smiling back. It wasn’t the perfect love story he had imagined with Kochanski but getting to kiss your attractive roommate and getting to jokes with him too. Yeah, that sounded pretty good to him. Space was a very lonely place and having someone to spend it with was all Dave wanted. After all, you can be a smeghead and a pretty good guy too.


End file.
